The Smiley Smile Message Board

http://thequietus.com/articles/10534-tony-visconti-favourite-albums?page=1

This site just put up a piece where famed producer Tony Visconti discusses, at considerable length, his 13 favorite albums.

http://thequietus.com/articles/10534-tony-visconti-favourite-albums?page=3

concerns WH, and he has, in my view, some highly perceptive things to say about it.  And what he says about the other dozen records (Revolver, Joni Mitchell's Blue, Blonde On Blonde, Robert Johnson's Complete, Sunshine Superman, Dr John's In The Right Place, Philip Glass's Songs From Liquid Days, Best Of Spike Jones, Les Paul & Mary Ford, Incredible String Band's 5000 Spirits, Le Mystere de Voix Bulgares, and....XTC's Mummer!) is well worth reading too, not least since he mentions the BB's a couple times more.

Great, great stuff, thanks for sharing. His thoughts on WH really show the difference between UK and US perspectives on the band and this era of their music. Visconti has always been one of my favorite producers, and I think any Bowie album without his involvement suffers accordingly.

Interesting choices. Tony Visconti also produced one of my favorite Sparks' albums, the underrated Indiscreet.

Really cool to read, thanks for that. Robert Christgau once published a piece where Wild Honey ranked in his top ten all-time albums. Any other high industry praise for Wild Honey? I may collate this stuff and add it to the wiki page tomorrow.

Jim Morrison loved it.

"Especially with a track called ‘Here Comes The Night’. I can play that 10 times today and I wouldn’t get bored with it."

Never hearda Tony Visconti, but he's sure on the money with that statement!


Also, this is the first I've ever read that "Brian's music to cool out by" was the Beach Boys' answer to Revolver.

I always liked Paul Williams' (Crawdaddy) assessment of the Wild Honey album.

Visconti's reference to Revolver when talking about WH raises an interesting point. Usually, the conventional wisdom about Beatles/BBs goes: Brian hears (the US) Rubber Soul, he answers it with Pet Sounds, he takes it up to the next level and begins Smile, Sgt Pepper freaks him out and he abandons Smile. Which, as we all know, is not exactly how the chronology played out, especially on the Smile side.  But this leaves out Revolver.

Mr. Desper would be the person to really ask about this, but I have to wonder whether, if only in a kind of subconscious way (keep in mind that a year separates Revolver and WH and back in those days that was practically a century in pop years), WH was Brian's putting into practice concepts of production that arose in his head from listening to Rubber Soul and Revolver. (Of course, WH's production was credited to the BBs as a whole but the first credits assembled before release had Brian as lone producer and I suppose it's safe to say his role in the production was biggest, followed by - would it have been Carl?)

The most obvious difference between the two records is that Revolver moves, track by track, in a huge variety of directions - from PS pastiche to raga-flavored to goofy singalong to the chaos of Tomorrow Never Knows. (And, as we learned in the 1990s, TNK itself evolved in all kinds of wild directions before the released version - for example, going into an area which sounds like a direct path to house music, another that anticipated electronica.)  Whereas WH, though it has a lot of variety too, has a pretty consistent production and arrangement style from start to finish, apart from the last track.

But Visconti's point about the absence of reverb is a useful one.  The first Beatles albums, like all of British pop back then, had heavy echo and reverb. Starting in 1964, step by step, the Fabs and George Martin stopped using it all the time, and employed it much more carefully and strategically. By Revolver this process was complete.  Under Spector's influence Brian laid on the echo and reverb, layer after layer, then took it out on most of SS - so that WH completed the process. (Pepper had more than its share of echo and reverb here and there, and so did Magical Mystery Tour - but the White Album went back, generally, to a more unadorned sound.)

This whole business, really, would make a good subject for that class in BBs studies going on at Indiana University.  They could easily put in an hour or two looking at it - playing tracks for comparison, maybe Skyping with Mr D.

Thinking about the echo & reverb thing some more - I start to wonder whether a direct line can be traced from some aspects of the Revolver sound to the Smile sessions.  PS is pretty consistent when it comes to using e&r.  In much of Smile e&r are absent. Smile, both as it stands and as it appears to have been designed, is all about very dramatic contrasts and a thoroughly eclectic musical approach, like Revolver. But the engineering approach in Revolver is one that doesn't vary much.

As has been mentioned elsewhere on this board, Jeff Lynne did a 13 fave albums for thequietus.com a few weeks back, and PS was one of them. He also had Revolver in his list and talked about how its "punchy" sound had made a big impact on him when he heard it. "Punchy," certainly, is as apt a description of WH's overall sound as any.

I was unaware that SWD had anything at all to do with the recording of Wild Honey - care to enlighten me ?

Sorry, but his opening gambit of "I’m not sure which came first (Wild Honey or Revolver) but I know they followed each other closely..." invalidates much of what he has to say, in my view. He's preaching from a pulpit of ignorance.

I don't mean to be a jerk, but sometimes I wish AGD would discuss the music more rather than correct small facts. Vosconit's piece was about the actual music and the meaning it has to him, which could include some factual inaccuracies. He's not writing a biography, man.

Wild Honey is drenched in reverb because Tony Visconti doesn't know when it came out.

While I fail to understand the 'Revolver' connection (musically or historically -- especially since this came out after 'Smiley' and  Sgt. Pepper'), it's nice to see him praising it.

To me, 'Wild Honey' (sometimes my favorite album) is really like a psychedelic bubble-gum album.

from the quotes on tour it would seem The Beach Boys themselves have little idea exactly when they recorded stuff. These ancient musicians/producers are not neccessarily great internet users and thus feed their info from memory than anything else.

He was assisting Jim Lockhart for Smiley and Wild Honey. He goes into it in my book.

I can kind of hear The Revolver connection. "Got to Get You into My Life"  is like a cousin to some of the songs on Wild Honey, and "Mama Says" is about as weird of a closer as "Tomorrow Never Knows", and says a great deal about the differing approaches the two bands took to psychedelia.  "Good Day Sunshine" and "Country Air" have very similar sentiments, too, as well as a piano dominated sound. "I'm Only Sleeping" is an acoustic slice of life song, kind of like "I'd Love Just Once to See You". Oh, and we have the Beatles sort of copying the Beach Boys harmonic vocal approach on "Here, There, and Everywhere".

Yeah, Steve Desper didn't start working on Beach Boys albums and singles until 1968.  "Stack-O-Tracks" and "Do It Again".

Can you post that section here?  ( great promo for the book, dontchathink?)

Thanks for the link rn57, interesting reading and nice to see WH get recognition.

I must admit I did a double take at the revolver/WH comment but for a non BB mega fan it's not the biggest error.

Love on a Farmboy's Wages is a fantastic track but Mummer is one of my least favourite XTC LPs alongside Go2.

Right, the story is that Steve filled in discreetly when Jimmy was out sick, which apparently was often--he was battling some major health issues.

Au contraire, Pierre. I really like the small facts (minutiae). It's enlightening and fun. Of course I'm a Quality Assurance Engineer, so maybe that's why I appreciate the factual accuracies and attention to detail. Plus, reading AGD's posts has enabled me to be much more of a knowledgeable Beach Boys fan over the years.

AGD's an author on The Beach Boys and other artists. There are very few on this board who possess the knowledge that Andrew Doe has regarding The Beach Boys. I believe that fact validates Andrew as a critic of other writers' work. As far as I'm concerned, he's allowed to correct people here because he's the purveyor of truth. Consider his contributions to this board helpful and insightful instead of questioning why his input here leans more to getting the facts straight than his musical tastes.

I remember reading that too (Recording Sessions book or on one of the boards), but don't ever remember him mentioning the Wild Honey album by name. He's mentioned more than once that is first foray into recording with the Beach Boys was with Carl Wilson and the tapes for Stack-o-Tracks. And the infamous Do It Again recording and the subsequent master tape of the song rolling off the back of his Corvette into Benedict Canyon.   ;D

Yep, some people have lives...lives in which they've produced a fuckload of awesome records, rather than being incredibly unpleasant to people who misremember tiny details on a Beach Boys forum.  :lol

I thought it was an interesting interview. Revolver has had too much praise heaped on it over the years (songwriting really not up to much imnsho), whereas Wild Honey has had too little, so it's interesting to read a perspective of someone who was around at the time, working in the business etc.

*off topic* really been digging 'Earth Song/Ocean Song' by Mary Hopkin recently- produced by Visconti, who was married to her at the time, I believe, and a lovely record. Lots of cracking phased strings etc.

When I referred to SWD and WH what I had in mind was something I read eons ago, don't remember where or when, that said he was "present" at the WH sessions.  That's the word I remembered I hadn't thought he had actually put hand to knob. I'd be interested to see what he says in Mike's book about this time.

I'd say that some WH songs have a fair similarity in structure and arrangement with some Revolver tracks, and Country Air does sorta tie in with Good Day Sunshine that way.  Got To Get You Into My Life is an interesting tune to talk about as well in connection with WH. It's obviously soul-based and Paul's vocal seems to owe something to Georgie Fame (not very well-known in the US, but a pivotal figure in the intersection of rock, soul and jazz in the UK).  

But GTGYIML also has those big, beefy horns.  The closest white equivalent to that sound here would be John Fred & the Playboy Band or Bill Deal & the Rhondels. One very interesting thing about WH is that it has a feel, building on bass, keyboards, rhythm guitar that makes it lean slightly more toward the funk side of things, rather than the kind of soul epitomized by Stax. That was another respect in which it was way ahead of its time.

(But not so ahead of its time that it didn't crack the US Top 40, a major recovery after SS's chart performance, and get into the Top 20 singles with Darlin'. I've sometimes wondered what would have been the commercial performance of a followup to WH that built on its overall style, and how that might have altered the subsequent course of the band's history.)

If Revolver can be said to have influenced WH (though, as I said, my guess is that Brian by the time it was recorded probably would not have been thinking consciously about it as a reference point), then the influence of WH on Paul McCartney's subsequent work is worth pondering. Quite a few Wings songs have a rhythmic and melodic feel similar to WH.

Looking at the rest of Visconti's discussion - yeah, he does get chronology a little muddled. (But I'm sure the most glaring mistake - getting Robin Williamson's first name wrong - was the fault of whoever transcribed the interview.)  He talks about Joni Mitchell's Blue as if it had an impact on the acoustic T Rex stuff, but he must be thinking about the first JM album - by the time Blue came out Bolan was working on Electric Warrior.

(Speaking of that album, though, reminds of the opening to some old Brian interview - may have been in Musician magazine.  Before getting the chat underway, he calls to somebody, "Put on Blue!" The article's writer thought, at first, that Brian was talking about the Mitchell album, but of course he meant - yep, Wayne - "the Rhapsody.")

I'm surprised this is being debated, there is no doubt he was involved in both WH and Smiley Smile. To be fair, is it a case of semantics here, in what his role would be labeled that is the sticking point? The point about Jim being ill at times during the 1967 sessions is correct.

And the proof of SWD's involvement with Smiley - beyond the overreaching history of it which is archived here on this board - can be found in the story of how the BB's got the ELTRO machine on the tune She's Goin Bald. And who got it for them to use. :)

I think I'm remembering my history right. He was there for Smiley and beyond, in varying capacities until he became the primary engineer.

I'm not sure it's being "debated" whether Desper was there or even contributed ideas. Maybe the question is if he had anything to do with the recording of the Wild Honey album.....

That could be the case, sure. I'm sure I remember something about him through 1967 actually helping to get the whole studio up and running, as the one at the house used for/during WH was another one in "flux" I guess you could say between the Frankenstein (Frankenstudio?) setup with the Dualux broadcast board and rental gear used for Smiley going to the more permanent setup used on Friends. Either way he was involved.

this was robert christgau's review on the album for the curious

Wild Honey [Capitol, 1967]
It feels weird to call this a great record--it's so slight. But it's perfect and full of pleasure; it does what it sets out to do almost without a bad second (except for "Let the Wind Blow," each of the 11 tunes--total time: 23:54--ends before you wish it would). And what does it set out to do? To convey the troubled innocence of the Beach Boys through a time of attractive but perilous psychedelic sturm und drang. Its method is whimsy, candor, and carefully modulated amateurishness, all of which comes through as humor. Tell me, what other pop seer was inspired enough to cover a Stevie Wonder song in 1967? A+

Suppose I posted a trenchant musing on the modular character of "Good Vibrations" and its influence on Smile but prefaced it with a comment indicating I was in awe of what Mike Love did when composing and recording this song, which was a standout track on Pet Sounds ?

Cheers for sharing - great stuff!

Visconti has some fine points and it's always nice to see WH praised, but AGD is right. If you want to wax about historical causalities, get your facts straight. I wasn't around in 66-67, but I know that year's time made a huge difference back then.

Your view on the modular character of the song and its influence on Smile would be no less valid.

The difference is not just acoustic vs. electric; Visconti is commenting on the style of songwriting and performance Dylan started out with in '62 and '63 compared to what he was doing in '65 and '66. The early years consisted of more earnest songs in a traditional folk vein with some wry humor thrown in. Starting in '65, Dylan not only plugs in an electric guitar but starts writing surreal caustic epistles that anticipate punk, songs that look inward more than addressing social issues. Even the acoustic songs from this period ("It's Alright Ma, I'm Only Bleeding" and "Desolation Row") sound completely different than what Dylan was doing in '63. It's really the sound of a young man who was eager to please and be liked, but who became wary of those willing to exploit him. As his contempt grew, so did his form of expression. He really invented a whole new vocabulary for a singer-songwriter to indulge in.

I'm surprised so many people haven't heard of Tony Visconti. Surely you know the work he did with David Bowie whether you knew he produced them or not. He actually is a more accomplished producer than Stephen Desper in terms of scope and variety of his credits, length of career, and surely amount of records sold.  I'm sure Stephen has to consider it a large honor to be name-checked by someone of Tony's caliber, whether it's warranted or not.

I just checked Tony's Wikipedia entry and found out was once married to Mary Hopkin and May Pang. I did not know that.

I'm not surprised, I don't remember ever hearing of him; but then I didnt follow Bowie's stuff in depth. I listened to the stuff I liked



To both at the same time?

Nope...but they was two foxes in their day. Since there are a couple of Sparks fans around here, worth mentioning that when he was married to Mary H, Tony got her to record "Never Turn Your Back On Mother Earth." Ron Mael has mentioned this in an interview or too. It has never been officially released or surfaced otherwise.

It's on the 2007 album Valentine.  If Spotify's (http://open.spotify.com/track/7x6kSPwVHhOJJvcxMDr71z) got it right, it's just titled "Mother Earth" which does obfuscate it a bit.

I did not know that. That's some weird, wild stuff! :-D

Visconti is more famous, but Desper is a better engineer in my opinion ... just to balance out that statement.